it's not there Roland MKS-70

Roland MKS-70





The Roland MKS-70 is the rack version of the JX-10 & both were released in the same year of 1986. The MKS-70 could also use the same PG-800 sound programmer as the JX-10 & was equipped with three different effects - portamento, delay, and chorus - it also had a memory cartridge slot.

The MKS-50 & the JX-10 keyboard version are both 12 note poly synths with 2 oscillators, 2 envelope generators and one filter per voice,. You get 64 patches & an additional 32 user patch storage locations which could be expanded via Roland's proprietary M-16C cartridges. The factory sounds were designed by Eric Persing who went on to famously designs sounds for the groundbreaking Roland D-50 just a few short years later.

 

Essentially then the MKS-70 is the JX-10 in rack format, which was the follow-up to the JX-8P - a very high-end all analog Flagship synth at the time of its release, which failed to impress both reviewers & punters due to a low 6 voice polyphony & a few other issues. The JX-10 & this MKS-70 rack version were basically rushed to the rescue by Roland aeound 2 years later & brough the same synth engine, but with greater 12 voice polyphony, the ability to split the keyboard & a few other updated features.

 

 

 

The PG-800 programmer

 

The MKS-50, JX-8P, JX-10 & other DCO Roland synths of this release period like the JX-3P & Alpha Juno 1 & 2, all switched to the DX-7 or Casio CZ style front-panel membrane switches, abandoning the traditional knobs & sliders. This gave rise to the Roland PG Programmer units, with the PG-800 being the largest of the PG range designed to accompany the JX-8P & JX-10 & MKS-50 rack version and ironically give these synths back the hands-on tactile control Roland had chosen to abandon in favour of the new fashion of the clutter-free membrane-switch look.

 

The MKS-50 can be found fairly cheap in the free-ads for such a classic old Roland analog synth but you can also get the smaller compact JX-08 emulation from Roland which is part of their recent Boutique modelled synth & drum machine series. The JX-08 is not an exact clone but it does much of what is required to emulates the JX-8P, JX-10 & MKS-50, adding many hands-on controls from the original PG-800 programmer interface built-in to the unit which delivers easy to use sliders to edit sounds and tweak parameters for performance & recording duties.







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Added: 12 November 2023
New price: discontinued
S/H price: £500
Company:  ROLAND UK

This product is part of
Roland's
Juno series



Roland's Juno series were the last analog synths made by the company before they switched to sample digital synthesis. All Juno synths used Digitally Controlled Oscillators (DCO's), starting with the 1982 6-voice Juno-6 with built-in chorus effect. Roland followed on with the updated Juno-60 released less than a year later also in 1982, which was essentially the Juno-6 but with the ability for the user to store 56 patches to memory, something the Juno-6 had lacked, however the Juno-60 still didn't have MIDi which came in just a year later in 1983.

 

After releasing one final VCO analog synth - the Jupiter-6 which had basic MIDI specs - Roland released the Juno-106 which still sported front-panel Jupiter-style slider controls for key parameters but was a DCO synthesiser.

 

So to be 100% accurate they were the only three Juno synths - The Juno-6, Juno-60 & Juno-106 - All three were DCO synths and all three offer traditional front-panel Jupiter-style slider controls for the main synth parameters. 

 

Expanding the Juno series

For the sake of creating clarity & order for beginners trying to make sense of Roland's early synthesiser output, we are going to list the 'Juno' Series as all of the final 100% analog Roland synths made by Roland up until they stopped making analog synths and switched to sample digital synths with the D-50.

 

All these Roland synthesisers are titled Juno or have a J prefix. None of them used non-digitally controlled VCO's like the Jupiter Series. Apart from the Juno-106 they all used membrane switches on the front-panel, discarding the traditional knobs & sliders to edit & control sounds. They all used DCO oscillators.

 

If we organise Roland Juno & J-prefix series synthesisers like that, then the Juno Series after the Juno-6 & Juno-60 will also include the JX-3P, the Alpha Juno 1 & 2 - both fully analog synths with DCO's - and the final analog DCO flagship JX-8P  and its follow-up JX-10 or 'Super JX'.

 

The MKS rack versions

You could also include the rack version of the keyboard versions in the Juno Series too. The MKS-30, MKS-50 & final MKS-70 rack version of the JX-10 Super JX.

 

The SynthPlus home-keyboard versions

One can also include in the Juno Series the related & rare home-keyboard versions of the Juno-106 and the Alpha Juno 1 & Alpha Juno 2, which are the SynthPlus 60 (HS-60), the SynthPlus 10 (HS-10) & the SynthPlus 80 (HS-80) respectively - Roland do not list these three SynthPlus synths on their own Roland History blog page, but they have identical synthesiser engines & full MIDI specs the same as the Juno units they are based on.

 

 

 

We have therefore organised the 'Juno' synths this way on Dancetech so that visitors can see in one collection, all the final 100% analog DCO synths Roland made, all listed together in an easy to understand way.

 

The Juno Series sounded the final hurrah for Roland analog synths. Roland moved on to release their proprietery sample synthesis engine they called Linear Arithmatic Synthesis (or LA Synthesis), beginning with their groundbreaking flagship D-50 synth in 1987, and then on to physical modelling & analog modelling in various forms, never to return to making a real analog synth again apart from one Boutique series synth jointly made by Roland and the American company Studio Electronics.

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